New Autumn
by Perfectsyco
Summary: While out on the job, the crew witnesses an accident that nearly destroys a town, and offer aid.


Title: New Autumn.

Summary: While out on the job, the crew witnesses an accident that nearly destroys a town, and offer aid.

Rating: I'm going with M to be safe. Some gore (the accident's pretty bad), some death (no main characters), and maybe the occasional steamy scene.

Pairings: Definitely S/K, possibly some M/I.

Timeline: Post OiS but before the Big Damn Movie, because said movie shouldn't have happened. Not that I don't like it, just that the show should never have been cancelled.

Note: So I've been considering writing for Firefly for a while now. And when I say considering, I mean I've got bits of various stories hanging around my hard drive. Honestly I've been a little afraid I can't do it justice. But screw it, I trust you guys to tell me if I'm doing it wrong (yes, that is a blatant request for feedback). This is not beta'd, so let me know if there are any unbearable mistakes.

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><p>The modified cargo ship, Ravager, was an imposing one. Orbiting Hera, it was originally one of the largest cargo haulers legally allowed to civilians. Certainly the largest a civilian could afford without corporate sponsorship.<p>

It's modifications allowed it to perform the duties it's crew were cut out for. Mercenary work, slave trading, and piracy. It was one of the best in it's business. It's cargo hold had been completely taken up by cells, inside which were crammed the barely living bodies of the people they had captured who even now put their faith in a God they had no reason to believe in.

On it's outer hull were weapons. Standard cannons and artillery guns for combat in atmosphere. Railguns for combat in space, were the standard guns had no oxygen to fire. Torpedo launchers which could blow a hole in all but the most heavily armoured of hulls. Two grapplers for latching onto and reeling in smaller vessels.

It's engines were not untouched either. The greater output allowed for speed and manoeuvrability on a ship that usually was not suited to either. The core of the ship, very much an antique, struggled with the power output required for the weapons and engine. It's increased output took a toll on it's stability, but not dangerously so. It held.

This ship could go head on against an Alliance gunship and come out on top. Perhaps even more than one.

Unfortunately, it was a cruiser that had spotted them. The crew weren't so sure about their chances now.

The crew left the hails unanswered, knowing full well there simply wasn't a way to explain this much weaponry within the confines of the law. They chose to fight.

The exchange of fire was soundless and ruthless, almost beautiful. The cruiser would only need one solid hit, but it's weapons were large and slow, and the pilot of the more nimble transport a skilled one. The Ravager fired with it's railguns and it's torpedoes, easily damaging the enormous cruiser, but not enough. .

One missile ended it.

An Alliance standard high explosive warhead. It didn't need to hit the transport directly, it's powerful blast, detonating almost a half kilometre from the stern, did it's damage. The blast ripped the rear engines apart and punched a whole in the hull, exposing the core of the ship.

The ship's engineer fleetingly realised that the damage done to the core had further destabilised it, and the result would be catastrophic. He had but a second to dwell on this though, before he was sucked out in to space.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The slaves below knew it was the end as soon as they watched the doors – the few they could see - seal shut, a blaring alarm indicating a hull breach. They prayed harder. Most simply cried in their despair, trying not to think of those they cared about as they gave up on the last of their hopes. A few panicked, using what little room they had to reel their arms back and pound against their cell doors. Fewer still would have smiled if they could, glad this nightmare was over.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The face of the Ravager's pilot was screwed up in concentration. They were burning in the planet's atmosphere, and if he didn't glide this ship in precisely the right way, so that precisely the right parts of the ship took the brunt of it, they'd break up and die.

He didn't realise it was a futile effort. With their engineer dead, he had no way to realise the added heat was quickly making the core go critical.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The town of New Autumn was a thriving one, grown from the ashes of the Unification war. This part of Hera had almost been a wasteland by the time the war was over. The original town of Autumn, named for it's beauty during that season, had once stood here. It's people had fled as soon as troops began pouring in, the fight beginning right on top of it before moving on to Serenity Valley, a few miles north.

Autumn had not survived, and while the troops had pulled away from where it once stood, and eventually the planet, the people had not. These people were not weak. They had united, they had rebuilt, and they had thrived.

The people of New Autumn were friendly. Kind when they had every right and reason to be bitter. So when they saw a ship burning up in the atmosphere, a trail of smoke and debris behind it, they didn't hesitate in gathering what supplies and personnel they could in anticipation of the crash.

They had no way to know that the Ravager would truly live up to it's name this day.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The slaves knew that it was time, that their lives in this 'verse had come to an end. The ship was shuddering violently, and they could clearly hear the sound of tearing metal as pieces broke off. Every one of them took a brief moment to regret the manner in which they died. And every one of them, as they prayed for the light of heaven to take them, chose to accept it, and the lives they had led before being captured.

Their prayers were answered, in a way. A light did indeed take them, but there was nothing heavenly about it.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The people of New Autumn had no time to react. No time to find shelter. As the ship got low enough to clearly see it's shape, barely a mile east of the town, the blinding light that emitted from it was all the warning they had.

The shock wave crashed into the town like a tsunami. A powerful, terrible force that left destruction in it's wake. The east side of the town was decimated in an instant, the force barely dissipating enough to leave a small part the far west side largely in tact.

It was over in a few short seconds. A few seconds to wreak destruction the likes of which only the older townspeople remembered.

For a moment the town stood still. Nothing but silence as the terrible reality of what had happened truly sunk in. And then chaos. The survivors of the east and centre of the town cried for help, while those from the small and largely untouched section in the west scrambled to do what they could.

And three miles south of the town, parked on a hill overlooking New Autumn, the ship Serenity and her crew watched in stunned horror as this atrocity unfolded before them.


End file.
